50 Years Of Colleen Moore`s Fairy Castle

August 23, 1985|By Mary Durland Fields.

The ultimate dollhouse is 50.

Since 1935, when the last touches were made to the garden of actress Colleen Moore`s Fairy Castle, the house has been on public view. And since 1949, when it finished touring for the benefit of children`s charities, its home has been the Museum of Science and Industry.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published Sep. 6, 1985:Corrections, clarifications.A story in the Friday section of the Aug. 23 Tribune reported incorrectlythat some of the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago are on loan toother museums. The miniature rooms at the Phoenix Art Museum and the DulinGallery of Art in Knoxville are not part of the Art Institute`s Thorne Roomscollection. The Tribune regrets the error.

Four million people visit the museum annually and most stop at the model castle. It gleams with old gold, diamonds and emeralds, fantasy furnishings and museum-quality antique miniatures of great beauty and rarity, such as a 2,000-year-old Egyptian Kohl jar. There even are two more ancient statues of the goddess Isis, one of lapis lazuli, the other of green glaze; both are exceedingly small.

The spiral staircase, unsupported and seeming to float to the next level, the carved ivory floor--no mere marble here--and the sheer, well, size of the Hall are impressive. Collectors marvel that the palace`s 1-inch-to-1-foot scale is the same as their own dollhouses. Yet, like Queen Mary`s Dolls` House at Windsor Castle, the impression is of such grandeur that most visitors think it must be larger in scale.

It isn`t. A chair in the castle is the same 3 inches high as it would be in the children`s dollhouse at home. Only it was more expensive. The dollhouse cost a half-million dollars in what Moore calls the ``hard money`` of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Well in excess of a million dollars would be required now to duplicate this masterpiece of fantasy.

Many dollhouse treasures would be unobtainable at any price today. The Drawing Room floor, rose quartz banded in jade, was made in Peking to Moore`s order and took nine months to arrive in the United States. The castle itself took seven years to complete.

Moore was on a cruise to Hawaii with her parents when the idea of the castle first struck. Struck is the right word because they paid little attention to the beauties of the island. Instead, plans were drawn, discussed, discarded and finally chosen.

The result is palatial, properly turreted, high-ceilinged and magical. Planned by Horace Jackson--who also designed Moore`s stage sets at First National Studio--as an ``enchanted castle,`` the interior was designed by Harold Grieve with amenities such as working solid gold chandeliers--studded with diamonds and emeralds--and running water for the kitchen and baths, especially the marvelous alabaster Bathroom of the Prince.

The dollhouse`s engineering problems were solved by Charles Morrison, Moore`s father. During the construction period, he opened an office in Glendale, Calif., to be near the miniature castle.

Moore, now 83 and living in Templeton, Calif., went to Hollywood when she was just 15. She had earned more than $1 million before she was in her mid-20s, starring in 60 films before her retirement when she married Homer Hargrave, a founder of Merrill Lynch and chief of the company`s Chicago office.

She was a friend of Narcissa Niblack Thorne, whose collection of miniature period rooms--68 of them--is exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. Although they are closed at the moment, 11 may be seen at the Art Institute Junior Museum in fall, prior to the reopening of their gallery in 1987. (See accompanying story.)

Moore was a friend of many talented artists who provided samples for the dollhouse. In the Drawing Room, stacked on the rosewood piano, are scores copied in tiny notes by their composers: Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, Richard Rodgers. The list is a who`s who of the music world. The piano can be played; the music is ready.

Books are on the Library shelves, also written in small-scale handwriting by famous authors of the time: Noel Coward, Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edna Ferber and John Steinbeck among them. Sixty-five 18th Century leather-bound miniature books, easily read, are the collection`s nucleus.

In her 1971 book about the dollhouse (``Colleen Moore`s Doll House,``

Doubleday), Moore explains how she had 1-inch-square leather books especially made for the words of these authors. She also discusses the castle, room by room, pointing out the fairy tale themes such as Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin, and the Camelot theme of the Dining Room. Visitors can push a button and hear Moore describe each room as they see it.

A warning to visitors: Allow time to absorb the structure`s beauty and its many treasures. A tiny gold and diamond clock must be wound daily. Chairs in the Bedroom of the Princess are platinum with cloisonne seats and backs made from diamond and emerald clips that ``I would rather see in the castle than on my lapel,`` as Moore says in her book.